66 67Vol. 35 No. 4 - November 2013 Issue Vol. 35 No. 4 - November 2013 Issue

Ooredoo has built a massive new satellite downlink head-end in Doha.

By Rainer Lorger, General Manager Sales & Marketing, DEV SystemTechnik GmbH

Powerful

ANGAANGA

Rainer Lorger has been DEV’s General

Manager Sales & Marketing since 2009.

Lorger’s main responsibility is the management

of the continuously growing company’s national and international

sales structure.

With Rainer Lorger MSc, DEV Systemtechnik gained a distinguished

electronics industry professional with 30 years’ experience in sales

and management and expert knowledge of the market. He started

his career in 1983 as a sales representative with Hewlett-Packard,

where he made it up to district sales manager. In 1998, Lorger joined

Tektronix, one of the leading electronics test and measurement

businesses, as sales director, Europe, to implement a new European

distribution structure. Before joining DEV Systemtechnik, he served

as a division manager with Hydrotechnik, a medium-sized company

in the field of electronic data acquisition systems.

Together with his team, Lorger has set clear signs in the market to

expand DEV’s ranking as a global supplier of leading RF technology

from the antenna to the receiver.

Rainer Lorger, General Manager Sales & Marketing, DEV Systemtechnik GmbH & Co. KG

The need to extend its IPTV capacity to 250 channels

was one of the reasons for Ooredoo (Qatar Telecom -

Qtel) to build a new satellite downlink facility in its existing

Doha head-end site and antenna farm containing eight

Ku-band and seven C-band antennas. Qtel selected

SVS Telekom of Istanbul, Turkey, as the main contractor.

For the critical signal paths from the antennas to the

receivers, SVS relied upon the products and services of

DEV Systemtechnik, Friedberg, Germany.

Ooredoo (meaning “I Want”) is a brand name introduced by

Qatar Telecom, Q.S.C, to replace the former name (it was

operating as Qtel) on February 2013. Ooredoo (previously

Qatar Telecom) is the exclusive telecommunications

provider in Qatar and is one of the largest public

companies in the country. Since its foundation in 1987,

the company has become a provider of mobile services,

wireless services and wired services, with varying market

share in the domestic and international telecommunication

markets and in business (corporations and individuals)

and residential markets.

Telecom Node for Qatar

Employing about 2000 people, Ooredoo has a presence in 17

countries and is committed to expansion in the Middle East

and North Africa region as well as South East Asia. In total,

Ooredoo provides coverage to a population of over 560 million

people, with 57.5 million consolidated subscribers. Its vision

is to be among the top 20 telecommunications companies in

the world by 2020.

Quality firstFollowing this vision with a rather aggressive expansion

strategy, Ooredoo decided to build a massive new satellite

downlink facility on its existing head-end site in Doha with

the aim of adding capacity for existing and new services,

especially IPTV, and to completely shut down the older part

at a later date. The contract for the project went to SVS

Telekom (www.svstelekom.com.tr), an Istanbul-based

supplier of complete turnkey solutions, engineering designs,

maintenance and consultation on all types of communications

systems for broadcasters, telecom companies, ISPs and

military organisations.

SVS has a long-standing excellent relationship with DEV

Systemtechnik (www.dev-systemtechnik.com). Barbaros

Ozlu, Senior Manager at SVS, commented: ”We enjoy a

very fruitful partnership with DEV, proven in a large number

of successful common projects. We know that DEV will offer

us the best products and services in RF transmission and

distribution, whether coax or glass fiber. Partnering with DEV

minimises our risk as system integrator and main contractor in

the critical front-end of the solution.”

This partnership was challenged during a common visit

in Doha, remembered DEV’s area sales manager, Jörg

Sommerschuh: “Both SVS and DEV were confronted with

massively changed conditions, requiring a complete re-design

of the planned facility.” Learning about DEV’s comprehensive

redundancy philosophy and offering, Ooredoo decided to go

for a system with no single point of failure.

“We are the major player in this region and have to be second

to none regarding quality and availability of our services. So,

only the ultimate in reliability and safety will do,” explained

Gamal Mousa Elzain Mousa, Ooredoo’s assistant manager

Qcv Engineering, Core Network-Nw.

Solution overviewSo, a 15-antenna farm with two N+1 antenna redundancy

blocks took shape, 6+1 for Ku-band and 5+1 for C-band plus

two additional steerable antennas for testing purposes. The

complete system was built to ensure maximum reliability for

ongoing signal transmission. Fig. 1 overleaf depicts the outdoor

part, Fig. 2 (page 70) shows the indoor part of the solution. Fig. 3

(page 71) gives an impression of the Doha antenna farm.

DEV 8602 lightning protection protects the antenna

redundancy equipment and the optical transmission system in

case of lightning. The DEV 1993 antenna redundancy system

ensures ongoing signal transmission in case of failure at a fixed

antenna. It provides DC to the LNB of the motorised antenna,

including bias monitoring, while the DC for the LNBs of the

fixed antennas will be provided by the optical transmitters.

The DEV 7113 optical transmission system, part of DEV’s

Optribution® product family, provides a nearly loss-less signal

transmission over long distances to the technical room and

protects the equipment in the technical room due to galvanic

isolation in case of lightning. With optical transmission in

comparison to copper cables, much better signal quality in

terms of C/N and flatness can be achieved. This ensures

better BER and an increased margin at the IRDs.

The optical transmission system is built with path redundancy

to ensure ongoing signal transmission. The Signal is split to a

main and a slave Optribution Manageable L-band Distribution

Ooredoo (previously Qatar Telecom) is the exclusive telecommunications provider in Qatar and is one of the largest public companies in the country.

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ANGAANGA

Ooredoo decided to build a massive new satellite downlink facility on its existing head-end site in Doha with the aim of adding capacity for existing and new services

System DEV 2190 to distribute the signal depending upon the

numbers of main and slave IRDs. The distribution system is

also redundant to provide ongoing signal transmission. Fig. 4

(page 71) shows rack-mounted DEV 2190s.

Antenna redundancyThe accumulated power of all signals of all polarities of every

antenna is measured and compared against a user-adjustable

threshold. If a signal level under-runs the threshold, the

motorised antenna will be moved to the desired position to

first check the signal level. If this is so, the system switches

over to the redundant antenna. A switch-over is always made

for a complete antenna with all four polarities to allow the

investigation of the fault at the fixed antenna.

The automatic antenna redundancy system provides a web

interface to set up all the satellites, to manually switch over

or to use the motorised antenna as an additional antenna as

well as complete set-up functionality during installation. The

system can be monitored and controlled by an M&C-System

via SNMP. The switching modules are built up with latching

relays and DC pass-through to ensure continued signal

transmission in case of a power-down.

Signal transmission and distributionTo transport the signal to the technical room, it is converted

to the optical domain. This part of the system is also built

redundantly to secure ongoing transmission. The Ku-band part

uses a 12+1, the C-band part features an 8+1 transmission

redundancy. On each electrical/optical converter, the

accumulated signal power is measured and will be checked

against a user-adjustable threshold. If a signal under-runs a

threshold, the system switches over to the redundant path.

If a transmitter or a receiver was the cause of the switch-

over, the faulty one can be exchanged while the system

remains in service (hot swap). To overcome the losses of the

antenna redundancy system and the connection cables, the

optical transmission system provides manual gain control.

The automatic antenna redundancy system provides a web

interface to adjust the gain and thresholds to switch manually

to the redundant path and gives complete set-up functionality

during installation.

The system can be monitored and controlled by an M&C

system via SNMP. To monitor and control antenna redundancy

and the optical transmission system, an Ethernet connection

over fibre optic is required for connection to the technical

room. Therefore, two additional fibres are necessary.

The splitting is 4x16, 4x32, 4x64 or 4x128 depending upon

the number of IRDs. To provide redundancy, the incoming

signal from the optical RX is split into two to feed to the

identical DEV 2190, one main and one slave.

Verifying the solutionThe validity of the concept was proved by two series of tests,

the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) and the Site Acceptance

Test (SAT), done for each unit separately.

During the FAT, the insertion loss of all paths of the antenna

redundancy system, the insertion loss of all main paths as well

as the redundant path of the optical transmission system, and

the insertion loss of all paths of the signal distribution system

will be measured and documented. The documentation

consists of a measured curve including marker for minimum

and maximum insertion loss as well as the maximum

steepness in a 36MHz window. Functional tests such as

test of power supply redundancy, power line redundancy,

threshold functionality and manual switching will also be done

during the FAT.

During the SAT, the insertion loss of one main and the

redundant path of the antenna redundancy system, the

insertion loss of one main and the redundant path of the

optical transmission system and the insertion loss of two

paths per matrix switch of the signal distribution system

will be measured and documented. This means noting the

values for minimum and maximum insertion loss as well as

the maximum steepness in a 36MHz window. This can then Fig. 1: Outdoor part of the new Doha head-end

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ANGAANGA

As a summary of the project, Ooredoo’s Gamal Mousa Elzain

Mousa stated: “We were very pleased by the flexibility and

dedication of DEV, the quality and functionality of the devices

and the excellent price/performance offering. The company

delivered not only state-of-the-art equipment but also

prepared the project for future expansion so we are sure they

can keep pace with our growth.”

Future expansion An expansion of the system to almost 400 TV channels is

currently scheduled for 2014 and Ooredoo has again chosen DEV

Systemtechnik to contribute with upgrades of existing equipment

as well as RF transmission solutions for the full signal chain.

Fig. 2: Indoor part of the new Doha head-end

be compared against the results from the FAT. Functional

tests such as test of power supply redundancy, power line

redundancy, threshold functionality and manual switching will

also be done during the SAT.

Mission accomplishedDEV supported SVS during the tests and trained Ooredoo

staff on DEV equipment in the pre-operational phase. The

start of regular services was in Q1/2012.

Fig. 3: Part of the Doha antenna farm

Fig. 4: Rack-mounted DEV 2190 manageable distribution systems

Fig. 5: Delivery of DEV equipment to Ooredoo

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